Xavier couldn’t have programmed that in, could he? Antoinette wondered.
‘Clever,’ Clock said. ‘But not clever enough. Now we’ll have to get it out of you via some other means, won’t we?’
The ship was under constant steady thrust now. Still Antoinette heard nothing, and that started her worrying. Chemical rockets were noisy: they transmitted their sound right through the framework of the hull even though the ship was in vacuum. Ion thrust was silent, but it couldn’t sustain this kind of acceleration. But the tokamak fusion motor was totally silent, suspended in a loom of magnetic fields.
They were on fusion thrust.
Holy shit…
There was a mandatory death sentence for using fusion motors within the Rust Belt. Even using nuclear rockets this close to a carousel would have brought heinous penalties; almost certainly she would never have flown in space again. But fusion thrust was an instrument of potential lethality. A misdirected fusion flame could sever a carousel in seconds…
‘Xavier, if you can do anything about this, get us back on to chems immediately.’
‘Sorry, Antoinette, but I figured this was for the best.’
‘You did, did you?’
‘Yes, and I’ll take the rap for it if it comes to that. But listen, we’re being held hostage here. That changes the rules. Right now we want the police to pay us a visit. All I’m doing is waving a flag.’
‘That sounds great in theory, Xave, but…’
‘No buts. It’ll work. They’ll see that I deliberately kept the flame away from habitations. Matter of fact, there’s even an SOS modulation buried in the pulse pattern, though it’s much too rapid for us to feel.’
‘You think the cops’ll notice that?’
‘No, but they’ll sure as hell be able to verify it afterwards, which is all that matters. They’ll see that this was a clear attempt at signalling for help.’
‘I admire your optimism,’ Clock said. ‘But it won’t come to a court of law. They’ll simply shoot you out of the sky for violating protocol. You’ll never have a chance to explain yourself.’
‘He’s right,’ Mr Pink said. ‘You want to live, you’d better turn this ship around and scuttle back to Carousel New Copenhagen.’
‘Back to square one? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘It’s that or die, Mr Liu.’
Xavier undid his seat restraints. ‘You two,’ he said, pointing at the two visitors, ‘had better stay put. It’s for your own good.’
‘What about me?’ Antoinette said.
‘Stay where you are — it’s safer. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She had no choice but to trust him. Only Xavier knew the details of the program he had loaded into Beast, and if she started moving around as well she might come to harm if the ship made another violent thrust change. There would be arguments later, she knew — she was not happy that he had installed this set of tricks without even telling her — but for now she had to admit that Xavier had the upper hand. Even if all it might gain them was a few minutes of breathing time.
Xavier was gone, off towards the flight deck.
She glared at Clock. ‘I liked Clavain a lot better than you, you know.’
Xavier entered Storm Bird’s flight deck, making sure the door was sealed behind him, and settled into the pilot’s seat. The console displays were still in deep-diagnostic mode, not at all what one would expect of a ship in mid-flight. Xavier spent his first thirty seconds restoring the normal avionics readouts, bringing the ship into something resembling routine flight status. Immediately a synthetic voice started screeching at him that he needed to shut down fusion thrust, because according to at least eight local transponder beacons he was still within the Rust Belt, and thereby obliged to use nothing more energetic than chemical rockets…
‘Beast?’ Xavier whispered. ‘Better do it. They’ll have seen us by now, I’m pretty sure.’
Beast said nothing.
‘It’s safe,’ Xavier said, still whispering. ‘Antoinette’s staying downship with the two creeps. She’s not going anywhere soon.’
When the ship spoke to him, its voice was much lower and softer than it ever was when it addressed Antoinette. ‘I hope we did the right thing, Xavier.’
The ship rumbled as fusion thrust was smoothly supplanted by nuclear rockets. Xavier was pretty sure they were still within fifty kilometres of Carousel New Copenhagen, which meant even using nuclear rockets was in contravention of a list of rules as long as his arm, but he still wanted to attract some attention.
‘I do too, Beast. Guess we’ll know soon enough.’
‘I can depressurise, I think. Can you get Antoinette into a suit without the other two causing any trouble?’
‘Not going to be easy. I’m already worried about leaving them alone down there. I don’t know how long it will be before they decide to risk moving around. I suppose if I could get them into one compartment, and her into another…’
‘I might be able to selectively depressurise, yes. Never tried it before, though, so I don’t know if it’ll work first time.’
‘Maybe it won’t come to that, if the Convention’s goons get to us first.’
‘Whatever happens, there’s going to be trouble.’
Xavier read Beast’s tone of voice well enough. ‘Antoinette, you mean?’
‘She might have some difficult questions for you to answer, Xavier.’
Xavier nodded grimly. It was the last thing he needed to be reminded about now, but the point was inarguable. ‘Clavain had his doubts about you, but had the good sense not to ask Antoinette what was going on.’
‘Sooner or later she’s going to have to know. Jim never meant for this to be a secret her whole life.’
‘But not today,’ Xavier said. ‘Not here, not now. We’ve got enough to deal with for the moment.’
That was when something on the console caught his eye. It was on the three-dimensional radar plot: three icons daggering in from the direction of the carousel. They were moving quickly, on vectors that would bring them around Storm Bird in a pincer movement.
‘Well, you wanted a response, Xavier,’ Beast said. ‘Looks like you’ve got one.’
These days, the Convention’s cutters were never very far from Carousel New Copenhagen. If they were not harassing Antoinette — and usually they were — then it was someone else. Very likely the authorites had been alerted that something unusual was happening as soon as Storm Bird had left the repair bay. Xavier just hoped it was not the particular Convention officer who had taken such an interest in Antoinette’s affairs.
‘Do you think it’s true, that they’d kill us without even asking why we were on fusion thrust?’
‘I don’t know, Xavier. At the time I wasn’t exactly spoilt for other options.’
‘No… you did fine. It’s what I would have done. What Antoinette would have done, probably. And definitely what Jim Bax would have done.’
‘The ships will be within boarding range in three minutes.’
‘Make it easy for them. I’ll go back and see how the others are doing.’
‘Good luck, Xavier.’
He worked his way back to where Antoinette was waiting. To his relief, Clock and the pig were still in their seats. He felt his weight diminishing as Beast cut power to the nuclear rockets.
‘Well?’ Antoinette asked.
‘We’re OK,’ Xavier said, with more confidence than he felt. ‘The police will be here any moment.’
He was in his seat by the time they were weightless. A few seconds later he felt a series of bumps as the police craft grappled on to the hull. So far, so good, he thought: they were at least going to get a boarding, which was better than being shot out of the sky. He would be able to argue his case, and even if the bastards insisted that someone still had to die, he thought he could keep Antoinette out of too much trouble.